


a rumour of onions

by pieandsouffle



Series: the watcher's crown is worn by a queen [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Accidental Flatmates, Archivist Sasha James, Arguments, Cohabitation, Cooking is a Love Language, M/M, Pre-Relationship, oh my god they were roommates, resolutions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:42:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28476360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffle/pseuds/pieandsouffle
Summary: Any satisfaction Martin might have felt by his theory of Jon being a tidy houseguest being proven correct is deeply, deeply overshadowed by finding said houseguest scrubbing his oven at one in the morning.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: the watcher's crown is worn by a queen [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690378
Comments: 5
Kudos: 98





	a rumour of onions

**Author's Note:**

> Next part in my Archivist Sasha AU! Recommend you read _the spider taketh hold with her hands_ before this. If you don't wanna: Jon gets trapped in his flat by Prentiss, Martin volunteers his flat as a place to stay.

Whatever Tim Stoker may or may not be suggesting, let it be known that Martin Blackwood is absolutely, categorically, _definitely_ not freaking out and Tim Stoker – whatever he may be saying – is a filthy liar.

“I’m not _freaking out,_ ” Martin hisses at him. They’re in the foyer of the institute, Martin hunched nervously over by the door while Tim lounges against Rosie’s vacant desk. It’s about six in the evening, dark outside already and with silvery rain pelting down in sheets illuminated by the one dull, functioning lamppost flickering weakly in the street. Any other evening Martin might watch the streaks of water glint in the white glow, toy with the idea of writing a few lines of verse. Tonight, however, his mind is quite occupied by other things. Namely the rising sense of dread, panic, hope? Sitting thick in his chest.

Oh, Jesus this is happening isn’t it? It really is.

“Not what it looks like to me,” Tim says insufferably.

“Well I’m _not_ , actually, Tim! This isn’t a big thing!”

Martin thinks about much this was a _big thing_ when he suggested it in the breakroom that morning. He’d said it without thinking. No brain cells used whatsoever. Many stress cells being used instead. The way Tim’s eyebrows are currently waggling suggests his denial has done nothing to elevate himself – or protect himself – in Tim’s eyes.

“Sure, it’s not. You aren’t losing your shit.”

“Yeah, I’m not!”

“Defintely not! Look at you! Mr Confidence here is not thinking about how he only has PG Tips when Jon’s a Twinings man, so he’ll have to throw out what he’s got – ”

As a matter of fact, Martin had this worry some hours ago, and eventually threw it from his mind by concluding that Jon’s ability to distinguish between two brands of tea was about as pronounced as his ability to distinguish between a glass of orange juice and a cup of warm dishwater: in a word, and from actual experience, non-existent.

“That’s not even – Look, I’m not nervous,” Martin says.

He can’t _honestly_ say he isn’t nervous. Which is why his last statement was such a bald-faced, pig-headed lie. It is true that Martin may be _slightly_ nervous, but he did _not,_ as Tim put it so delicately during his lunchbreak, ‘lose his fucking mind’. He is experiencing nervousness at a _reasonable_ intensity. It is _reasonable_ to have concerns about having someone live with him indefinitely when Martin has _never_ lived with anyone other than his mother, and she –

Well. He’s never lived with anyone. And he’s never lived with a short person before. How does that work? What is he supposed to do? How tall is Jon anyway? Five-five? Five-six? Jon is short and skinny and – shit, all of Martin’s mugs are in the cupboard above the stove – Christ, is he going to have to move all the mugs onto the benchtop? He’s dead on six foot and has never needed a stepladder unless to change lightbulbs and even then, pulling a chair beneath the lighting fixture has always sufficed.

He can just imagine Jon stubbornly climbing onto the counter for the cupboard and slipping on a stray teabag as he reaches for the mugs, cracking his head on the floor or on the benchtop or the sticky-out handle of the drawer with the saucepans and – good god, what if he landed on the knife block? Or even just a stray fork?

Jon got himself trapped in his flat for three days by a worm woman, so it’s valid of Martin to compile a continuously growing list of ‘ways Jonathan Sims could accidentally kill himself in my flat’. Anything is treacherous when the victim in question has the survival instincts of a lemming.

He thinks about that patch of tiles in the bathroom that’s always slippery no matter how much he cleans them and feels himself grow pale.

“I’m not nervous,” he eventually repeats. “ _Don’t look at me like that,_ Tim, I’m just – ”

“Just what?” says a new voice.

Martin thinks he might have cracked a vertebra in his neck with how fast his head swivels towards where Jon stands in the doorway of the stairwell leading down into the Archives. He looks even smaller than usual, hunched as he is over a duffel bag presumably filled with clothing. Tim, infinitely cooler in all meanings of the word, turns his gaze to Jon with insufferable casualness. Jon notes Tim’s stare and immediately looks worried.

“Hey, Jonny! Just the man we were talking about!”

Jon shifts the bag and looks from Tim to Martin, and then back again. The duffel bag is truly ancient; clearly stuffed full of any clean clothing and essentials Jon could find in anticipation of his stay with Martin. The threads stitching the handles to the body look particularly shabby, not to mention the tear on one of the ends that reveals the lining of the bag; a greyish substance that may have been closer to actual white once upon a time. The contrast between it and neat, clean Jon in his tweed blazer is startling.

Whether Jon is more uncomfortable about being talked about behind his back or being called ‘Jonny’ remains to be seen.

“Er – I see,” he says cautiously. He hoists the bag up again. It instantly slips back down. “What – um, what about?” he continues, with a tone that is too-casual to be actually casual. He makes an attempt to pull the bag up again, fails, and eventually shrugs a weak-looking strap over his shoulder. He looks like a toddler carrying a toboggan. It appeals to the part of Martin – an unfortunately _very_ large part of Martin – that rests its chin in a hand and gazes appreciatively at whatever Jon does.

Martin opens his mouth, brain blank, with the vague hope that something resembling a not-awkward answer will just fall out. It’s hard to think when Jon is visibly leaning towards the left like a Christmas tree with all the decorations put on one side.

From the corner of Martin’s eye, Tim swoops in to rescue him from a situation that he definitely was responsible for in the first place.

“Oh, I was just telling Martin that he’ll have to go buy groceries on the way home, as you probably don’t want tea for dinner.”

Martin blinks. Jon does too.

“It … depends on what meaning of the word ‘tea’ you were referring to,” Jon says slowly, tottering further into the foyer. “You know Martin’s from the north, so – ”

“I mean leaf water.”

“Oh. In that case, probably not.”

“No? Don’t want a refreshing cup of chamomile for supper?”

“Chamomile,” says Jon imperiously, “is no better than boiled fertiliser.”

“Amen,” Martin mutters. He is rewarded with a faint, awkward smile that warms him to his toes. He is then instantly punished with a shit-eating grin from Tim that chills him like a bucket of ice-water was poured over his head.

_Don’t fucking say anything Tim; don’t you fucking dare –_

“Anyway,” says Jon, with a nervous eye fixed on Tim’s Cheshire Cat grin, “we should probably get going and – ”

“Yes!” Martin agrees eagerly. “It’s getting late and – ”

“It’s five past six,” says Tim, amused.

“Too late to be at work!”

“That’s right, and I’m trying to break bad habits,” Jon replies. He lurches towards the door, Martin quick on his heels.

Tim takes about three steps and blocks their path.

“Don’t let me stop you!” he says obnoxiously. And then he grasps the door handle and pulls it open with a bow, compounding the whole obnoxious, insufferable, embarrassing performance.

“Thanks,” Martin mutters, and follows Jon as quickly as possible out into the carpark.

* * *

Jon is a clean houseguest, Martin decides after two days, which isn’t really surprising. There’s just something _about_ Jon in general, his demeanour, that makes it apparent. It’s the way he holds himself down small – not from timidity, he doesn’t think; Jon has a big personality – but from sheer, practical efficiency. His knobbly elbows aren’t stuck to his sides; they’re far enough away to be comfortable, but close enough to be unobtrusive. His steps are small; far smaller than Martin’s. This is probably more to do with the fact that Jon is a small man and less to do with efficiency, but Martin decides to count it as evidence anyway.

The impression of intimidating efficiency and cleanliness is further compounded from his neatly combed hair down to his impeccably pressed trousers, and living in Martin’s flat has not changed that impression. Since he moved in – god, he hasn’t _moved in_ , he’s _staying_ with Martin, temporarily, shut _up_ stupid gay brain – every floor in the flat has been vacuumed, every tiled surface has been mopped, the draining rack is completely empty for the first time in god knows and that lightbulb in the living room has been finally replaced after months of darkness. If Martin throws a jumper on the back of a chair, he’ll find it neatly folded and sitting on the arm of the sofa. If he kicks his shoes off at the door, they’ll be pushed together in a tidy pair when he next takes a glance at them.

He even catches Jon stacking the old magazines under the coffee table in order of date.

Martin might even feel vindicated if it didn’t start to be annoying.

It’s one in the morning when Martin is dragged from an uneasy sleep. He can’t pinpoint the reason for his waking at first – assumes it’s just his brain got sick of tiptoeing the line between being awake or asleep and fell off to the side – and he’s staring blankly at the dark ceiling thinking about how badly today is going to suck if he doesn’t fall asleep in the next half hour when he hears a purposeful clatter from the kitchen.

It is instantly recognisable as the noise his oven makes when it is opened.

Jon is an organised houseguest. And clean, and efficient. _But_ , Martin decides, this somehow does _not_ mean he is a considerate one.

He doesn’t even bother groping for his glasses on the nightstand. It takes more effort than he really wants to give to struggle out of bed and stumble out of his room, but the alternative is to listen to Jon mop the floor or vacuum the ceiling and that’s something he just cannot bear.

“Jon?” he shields his eyes from the kitchen lights, uncomfortably bright in the early hours. He squints towards the smeary outline of the stove and oven beneath it.

The Jon-shaped blob on the kitchen floor freezes.

“Hello,” it says, after a prolonged pause.

Martin takes a step forward.

“It’s – Jon, what are you doing?”

The blob looks at the spray bottle and sponge in its hands. Then it looks into the open oven. Then it looks back at Martin, and Martin is just close enough now to recognise the look of absolute incomprehension on Jon’s face.

“Cleaning the oven,” he says eventually.

“Yeah, I can see that – ”

“Then why did you ask?”

Martin is almost too annoyed to appreciate the confused crease between Jon’s eyebrows. “Because I want to know why you’re cleaning my oven.”

“It was dirty.”

Jesus Christ –

“At _one in the morning?”_

“It isn’t any less dirty just because it’s one in the morning,” says Jon irritably.

Martin stands stock-still and permits himself a very brief fantasy of picking Jon up over his shoulder, shoving him down on the sofa that is now Jon’s bed for the foreseeable future, and sitting on him until he promises to stop cleaning the flat in the middle of the night and get some sleep. All in all, it takes about three seconds. Then his brain gives him another two seconds of kissing Jon on the cheek and –

Okay, that’s enough.

Jon is not allowed to be annoyed at _Martin_ when they are in _Martin’s_ flat in _Martin’s_ kitchen which he is, for some god-forsaken reason, _cleaning at one in the morning._

“Ovens don’t magically clean themselves,” Jon is saying. “If you let the grime build up then – ”

“This,” Martin interrupts, despairing, “couldn’t have waited for a better time? Like between six am and nine pm?”

“We have to get ready for work in the morning, Martin,” Jon says reproachfully, like Martin is somehow the bad guy here. His brow is furrowed as if he can’t quite comprehend what is so wrong with kneeling on the cold kitchen floor and cleaning Martin’s oven at one o’ _fucking_ clock in the morning. “And in the evening, I have statements to look at.”

“Singular statement, Jon.”

“Still. This was just the next best time to – ”

“The _next best time?”_

“Well, when else was I going to do it?” Jon snaps.

Martin scoffs. “At any other time of day that _isn’t_ the middle of the night?”

“But I don’t have time to clean it otherwise!”

“Then don’t clean it!”

Jon stammers like this is the most shocking thing he’s ever heard.

Tim’s voice floats through Martin’s mind, delightedly mocking. _You’re gay? And for that?_ It’s absolutely outrageous how into Jon he is when the man’s just an Oxford-educated idiot.

“Jon,” he repeats, “don’t clean it!”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Jon wrings a tea towel frustratedly in his hands.

“What do you mean ‘what am I supposed to do’?”

“I mean _what am I supposed to do?”_

“Do what? You don’t need to do anything!”

“Yes, I _do._ ” Jon stares him down, face flushed and eyes anxious.

“Fine! What you need to do is sleep, then! You need rest, what with all institute stuff and the stress!”

Jon throws his hands up in the air. “ _That’s_ the thing _,_ Martin! We have no idea how long this is going to go on for! Prentiss could be – she could be hit by a-a _bus_ tomorrow and it would be over. Or she could be there, lurking in the background, for the rest of our lives.”

And Martin’s idiotic vocal chords translate a reassurance, albeit an irritate one, to, “I don’t think a bus would kill Prentiss.”

“That’s not the point,” Jon snaps.

“I know it’s not the point Jon, but what _is_ then? Is it that you don’t feel safe here?” _Is it that you don’t feel safe with me?_ Martin hopes it’s not that. He hopes very hard it isn’t. “If you can’t sleep because you feel unsafe – ”

“I do feel safe here,” says Jon dismissively. “Or saf _er_ , anyway. Insofar as I can with _her_ still out there.”

There is a prolonged silence Martin feels down to his bones. Jon’s very flushed, but meeting his eyes stubbornly. Partly hopeful. Like Martin can translate whatever it is Jon’s really trying to say, that he just can’t put into words properly. Martin’s brain whirrs in the cavity devoid of sound.

Jon’s gaze flicks to a point in the air a foot to the left of Martin’s head. Then he visibly forces himself to look back into his face. “But I’m – I just – well – I – I can’t just be – a, a _guest_.”

“You are a guest,” Martin says dumbly.

“I _know_ ,” says Jon frustratedly, “but I don’t mean like – ” he visibly struggles for the words. “I’m – it’s – this isn’t – this is _different._ It isn’t like – like I’m a relative wh-who’s staying for a couple of weeks before heading back home again. We’re actively in danger. I don’t know when my flat will be safe again. If it was _ever_ safe.”

“I know. You can stay here as long as you want.” Martin means it. It’s not even just his crush talking. If it were Tim, or Sasha, he would mean it. The fact that Martin actively craves any little slices of time with Jon with a longing so powerful it hurts his chest is second compared to just wanting him to be safe. For his friends to be safe.

This somehow is not the response Jon wants. He throws the tea-towel down on the counter. “ _Why_ is this so _difficult?_ ”

Martin is so confused. It’s quarter past one on a Thursday morning and he’s arguing with his crush, who is living with him, in the kitchen of his flat but he doesn’t know what the argument is actually about and said crush is struggling to put into words exactly what it is about. If they’re not careful they’ll wile away the remaining hours of darkness bickering and nothing will be solved.

Jon rubs his eyes with his fingers, eyebrows scrunched together in an exasperated frown.

And abruptly, Martin realises what’s going on.

“Do you – sorry, do you think you have to _earn_ your place here?”

The tea towel in Jon’s hands – twisted around his fingers so firmly that his knuckles are going white and his fingertips are going darker – abruptly releases. It tells Martin all he needs to know. He doesn’t even the need the expression of relief that graces Jon’s features.

Martin lets out a laughing sort of sigh. “You don’t have to – I don’t expect you to _earn_ your place here.”

Jon opens his mouth to interrupt. Martin cuts him off quickly.

“I don’t mind you staying with me – ” an understatement if ever there was one, but – no, Martin can see that the tension in Jon’s shoulders hasn’t yet fully alleviated and he can’t tolerate that, he just can’t, “ – okay, actually, well, I _like_ having you around here, but you don’t have to – stay up to _bullshit_ o’clock cleaning my flat for me to let you stay here. I’m not going to force you to leave, you know; I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I never thought you _would_ ,” Jon says earnestly, and extremely uncomfortably. “I might be here for the long haul – or as long as you decide the haul is allowed to be, of course – ”

“Which is as long as you need – ”

“But I don’t want to take advantage. I’m already intruding. I-I _refuse_ to sit around and have you wait on me. I want to do something for you.”

Martin sighs. A big, long one that empties his lungs entirely. He’s suddenly exhausted. The puzzled adrenaline that was keeping him going during the fight is dissolving rapidly. They know what this is about now. He’s exhausted and so, so relieved.

Needing to prove he’s allowed to be there. That’s something Martin can’t cast aside or dismiss, not when he spends every moment at the Institute thinking the same thing. He stares down at Jon, looking skinny and tired and anxious, smothered in that lavender cardigan that looks so good against his dark skin.

“I understand.”

And in a second Jon looks just as tired, and just as relieved.

“Good.”

“I want to bring something to the table, so to speak.”

“Okay. That’s okay. Yeah?”

“Alright.”

“Good. And since it’s now – ” he squints at the blurry wall clock, “ – one-twenty in the morning, I think we should _both_ go back to bed.”

Jon turns longingly back towards the half-clean oven. “Can I just – ”

“ _No_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Onions" by William Matthews. Next chapter has not even been started lol


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